Ahwach in Ouarzazate
ⵡⴰⵔⵣⴰⵣⴰⵜ
A town of kasbahs where Ahwach has its oldest image, its village troupes, its voices, and for twenty years its festival.
The oldest image
The oldest known photograph of Ahwach is from Ouarzazate: “Ahouach (Berber dancers and musicians) from Ouarzazate”, by Marcelin Flandrin, around 1920. The Maison de la Photographie in Marrakech, which holds it, chose it as photo of the month in July 2021; its caption describes percussion punctuated by a great drum and call-and-answer song, the two traits still recognised today.
The Glaoua and Kasbah Taourirt
The Glaoua, whose seat was at Télouet and whose family lived at Kasbah Taourirt until 1956, were reputed masters of Ahwach; in 1971 Jean Mazel singled out the Ahwach to be admired at the Kasbah of Taourirt. Glaoui officials organised wedding and feast Ahwach.
That reputation is solid; the idea that Ahwach was a Glaoui creation is not. Local press recalls that Télouet had its own cultural heritage before the Glaoui, and the origin of Ahwach remains undatable. Today Kasbah Taourirt is the main stage of the Festival National des Arts d’Ahwach.
Sources Encyclopédie berbère, “Danse” Hespress Wikipedia, "Kasbah Taourirt"
The troupes of the province
According to a local account published in 2013, the Ouarzazate practice crystallised in the 1960s around a single troupe, “Taourirt”, of about a hundred and twenty members, followed by the troupes of Tifoultoute, Tamassint, Télouet and Sidi Daoud; the Glaoui is said to have given each fief its troupe. These are the names found among the province’s troupes at the first festival in 2005.
The same account describes the Ouarzazate manner: the tknza and the demdom for percussion, the men’s movement in the feet and the women’s in the hands. Arabic-language press readily calls the Taourirt and Télouet manner “weighty and measured”; that is an appreciation, not a technical description.
A voice: Safia Telouet
In Télouet and Ouarzazate the women carried the vocal line while the men drummed. The singer Safia Telouet (1946-2017) began this way, at thirteen, in 1959, in wedding Ahwach organised by Glaoui officials, before recording for national radio; a 1965 hit made her known beyond the valley. Her path shows how voices born in village Ahwach entered recorded music.
Source Hespress
The festival in history
Long before the national format, Ouarzazate had its Festival d’Ahwach, carried by the Conseil provincial du tourisme; three of its editions are documented. The Ministry of Culture then took the event over under the national name. Some articles date the festival back to 2003; no edition from that year could be documented, and the official numbering begins in 2012.
The dates, programmes, troupes and archives of each edition are kept on the festival’s official website, to which the links below lead.
- September 2005 First edition of the Festival d’Ahwach de Ouarzazate, organised by the Conseil provincial du tourisme: eighteen troupes and a parade to Taourirt Square.
- September 2006 Second edition: an “Ahwach village”, the Kasbah Taourirt square as main stage, a conference on the popular arts of Ahwach.
- April 2008 Third edition in front of Kasbah Taourirt, on the theme “Ahwach, a dynamic in the service of development”.
- October 2012 First edition under the national name, organised by the Regional Directorate of Culture of Souss-Massa-Drâa.
- October 2026 Fourteenth edition, 22 to 24 October 2026, at Kasbah Taourirt, Al Mouahidine Square and the tourist zone.
Edition archive2026 edition2026 programme
Sources Aujourd'hui le Maroc Aujourd'hui le Maroc Aujourd'hui le Maroc Hespress Ministry of Youth, Culture and Communication
Passing it on today
Ahwach is learned by watching, listening and imitating at village gatherings. Practitioners interviewed in 2016 worried about its “folklorisation”: one poet said the art once held far more rhythmic variants than the six or seven still played, that the beginning-middle-end structure was eroding, and that festivals favoured costume, speed and spectacle. These are testimonies, not measurements, but they describe a real risk.
Local associations now carry a large part of transmission. In 2017 the Regional Directorate of Culture of Drâa-Tafilalet began audio and video archiving with Ibn Zohr University, and a researcher called for school programmes and workshops. The Ouarzazate festival hosts youth and children’s troupes, workshops and scientific meetings.
Sources Géoparc du Jbel Bani, reprinting Albayane, “Ahwach, an authentic art turned folklore” L'Economiste Géoparc du Jbel Bani Hespress